SGST LAW AND UTGST LAW APPROVED BY GST COUNCIL- GST CLOSE TO IMPLEMENTATION

Dear Professional Colleague,

The GST Council in its previous meetings has cleared the CGST , IGST and Compensation to States Law. Moving ahead, today in the12th GST Council Meeting,the remaining two draft bills -UTGST (Union Territory GST) and SGST (State GST) has been approved.The UTGST law is for the union territories like Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep, Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli, which do not have legislative assemblies. Now, with all the five draft GST laws approved by the GST Council, the draft bills now need to be tabled and approved in Parliament's ongoing budget sessionensuring the GST implementation in India fromJuly 1st, 2017.

In today’s meeting GST Council has also approved the higher tax rate of 20% under the CGST Bill and SGST Bill; meaning thereby that the peak rate of GST could be raised up to 40% in aggregate in the future. However, presently the four tax rate slab are same as 5%, 12%, 18% and 28% but the item wise categorization of goods/ services as per the four slab rates are yet to be finalized. The cess on the luxury and demerit goods will also be finalized in the ahead GST Council Meetings.

Moreover, the Government has 9 Draft Rules to be read with the GST Law. The GST Council has already approved Registration, Payment, Refunds, Returns and Invoices Rules. The four other rules which are pending for approval are Composition, Valuation, Input tax credit and Transition Rules. The remaining rules will be taken in the next GST Council Meeting which will be held onMarch 31st,2017.

The Government is taking massive efforts for the rollout of GST in India. Its high time toget ready with GSTprovisions for the smoother transition in the new indirect tax regime- GST from the present indirect tax regime.